Ethnographic Studies
In 1961, as a member of the Harvard-Peabody study, filmmaker Robert Gardner began recording the Dani of the Baliem River Valley. In 1965, he created the film Dead Birds from this experience. Gardner emphasizes the themes of death and people-as-birds in Dani culture. "Dead birds" or "dead men" are terms the Dani use for the weapons and ornaments taken from the enemy during battle (wim). These trophies are displayed during the two day dance of victory (edai) after an enemy is killed.
Michael Rockefeller, son of former Vice-President of the United States Nelson Rockefeller, was a member of the Harvard-Peabody study and involved in the production of Dead Birds. While conducting further research on the Asmat people elsewhere in New Guinea, Michael Rockefeller disappeared. His body was never found.
Read more about this topic: Dani People
Famous quotes containing the word studies:
“His life itself passes deeper in nature than the studies of the naturalist penetrate; himself a subject for the naturalist. The latter raises the moss and bark gently with his knife in search of insects; the former lays open logs to their core with his axe, and moss and bark fly far and wide. He gets his living by barking trees. Such a man has some right to fish, and I love to see nature carried out in him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)